1953 Waco tornado outbreak<\/h3>
The 1953 Waco tornado outbreak was a series of at least 33\u00a0tornadoes occurring in 10\u00a0different U.S. states on May\u00a09\u201311, 1953. Tornadoes appeared daily from Minnesota in the north to Texas in the south. The strongest and deadliest tornado of the severe weather event was a powerful F5 on the Fujita scale.[nb 1] It struck Waco, Texas, on May\u00a011, causing 114\u00a0of the 144\u00a0deaths in the outbreak. Alongside the 1902 tornado in Goliad, it was the deadliest tornado in Texas history and is the eleventh deadliest tornado in U.S. history. The tornado's winds demolished more than 600\u00a0houses, 1,000\u00a0other structures, and over 2,000\u00a0vehicles. Nearly 600\u00a0injuries occurred, and many survivors had to wait over 14\u00a0hours for rescue. The destruction dispelled a myth that the geography of the region spared Waco from tornadoes, and along with other deadly tornadoes in 1953, the Waco disaster was a catalyst for advances in understanding the link between tornadoes and radar-detected hook echoes. It also generated support for improved civil defense systems, the formation of weather radar networks, and improved communications between stakeholders such as meteorologists, local officials, and the public.\n<\/p>
The Waco tornado was not the only deadly and damaging tornado in the outbreak sequence. On the same day as the Waco disaster, a high-end F4 tornado struck the Texas city of San Angelo, causing catastrophic damage, killing 13\u00a0people, and injuring more than 150. The tornado swept away numerous homes and damaged a school, but students inside escaped serious injuries. On May\u00a09, a long-tracked F3 tornado destroyed a large swath of Hebron, Nebraska, and killed five\u00a0people in the area. The following day, May\u00a010, featured numerous, often long-tracked and intense tornado families across the states of Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Two\u00a0families on nearly parallel paths traveled more than 100 miles (160\u00a0km) each and killed a combined total of six\u00a0people, mostly in Wisconsin. At least one\u00a0of the tornado families reached F4 intensity in Wisconsin. Two other F4 tornadoes also struck Iowa. Additionally, a relatively moderate tornado of F2 intensity caused significant loss of life in a shack in Minnesota, killing six\u00a0people. Although 33\u00a0tornadoes were officially registered from May\u00a09\u201311, others likely occurred but either went undetected or were not officially documented.\n<\/p>
On May\u00a011, 1953, a rich, unstable air mass moved northward over Texas from the Gulf of Mexico. As of 9:30\u00a0a.m. CST (15:30 UTC), thunderstorm activity from the overnight hours persisted, generating residual outflow boundaries. Already, anomalously warm surface temperatures reached the mid-70s \u00b0F as far north as a line stretching from Dallas to Austin. Dew points were correspondingly high as well, climbing into the lower 70s \u00b0F. As a dry line crossed the warm sector in the afternoon, a layer of cool surface temperatures left by the outflow boundaries locally enhanced low-level wind shear, acting as a mechanism to enable supercell and tornado formation. Winds backed along the outflow boundaries, perhaps aiding the formation of violent tornadoes.[5] Due to conducive conditions for severe weather, the U.S. Weather Bureau (later the National Weather Service) Weather Forecast Office in New Orleans issued a tornado alert covering sections of Central and West Texas.[6][7]<\/p><\/div>\n
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